Decision makers

President Obama: End The Secret Surveillance State

According to recent reports in The Guardian and The Washington Post, under provisions of the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the National Security Agency (NSA) has obtained direct access to the systems of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple and other major US internet companies.

Also under the Patriot Act, the government has been secretly tracking the calls of customers from major telecommunications companies—to whom they spoke, from where, and for how long—going back seven years.

Unchecked government surveillance presents a grave threat to democratic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. These revelations are a stark reminder that Congress has given the executive branch far too much power to invade individual privacy and that existing civil liberties safeguards are grossly inadequate. Powers exercised entirely in secret, without public accountability of any kind, will certainly be abused.

It's time that we begin to end this secret surveillance state by repealing section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of FISA. Sign the petition now to demand repeal.